That's the question millions (okay thousands) of NYT readers should be asking of an article that claims employers are now unhappy with immigration bill that they helped craft. The article asserts that employers complain that the bill will not "cure the severe labor shortages they foresee in the coming decade." Unless the reporter who wrote this story has ESP, he does not know what the employers actually foresee. He knows what they claim to foresee, which unfortunately (sorry kiddies) is not always the same thing. The article could also have benefitted by looking for some independent evidence of these labor shortages. If the kids haven't had food for weeks, then they probably would be pretty skinny. If we have a labor shortage, then we should see rising wages. In fact, in most of the jobs where the country supposedly has labor shortages, wages are stagnant or falling. In other words, we have a lot of really fat kids that haven't eaten for weeks. It might also have been useful to talk to some representatives of labor, or at least someone who doesn't stand to profit from having an increased supply of cheap labor.
--Dean Baker
